School board votes to slash budget, avoid layoffs or furloughs

SAN DIEGO – A divided San Diego school board voted Tuesday to slash $33.2 million from this year's budget without issuing layoffs, mandating furloughs or closing campuses.

The midyear cuts rely heavily on schools and administrators curbing their spending and on dipping into once-sacred accounts.

That means extended hiring freezes, postponing major purchases – from school buses to textbooks – and tapping the district's reserves and workers compensation funds.

Although painful, the reductions are mild compared to the estimated $63 million in cuts in store for the San Diego Unified School District's 2009-10 budget.

Early proposals to close next year's budget gap include layoffs, increased class sizes, shutting down small elementary schools and eliminating popular programs, including the week-long seminars that students spend in Old Town, Balboa Park and Camp Palomar.

San Diego Unified is not the only district suffering financially. School boards throughout the region and state are faced with similar struggles brought on by the state's fiscal meltdown.

Gov. Schwarzenegger has proposed cutting state education funding by $2.5 billion to help close California's proposed $42 billion budget gap. The Legislature has yet to approve any cuts, leaving school districts to plan their finances in the dark.

“It's a shame, it's embarrassing,” said Superintendent Terry Grier, referring to the state's fiscal mess. “We have elected officials to represent us. ... We have to know what the budget looks like.”

After scouring the district's budget for months in a series of workshops, trustees were still at odds Tuesday over how to cut costs.

Trustee Katherine Nakamura's request to delay a vote on the midyear cuts until a budget workshop Saturday were denied by the new board majority of President Shelia Jackson, Richard Barrera and John Lee Evans.

Nakamura wanted a detailed list from budget planners showing exactly what would be eliminated with $7.7 million in cuts from the central office. Trustee John De Beck rejected the cuts altogether, saying they were too much of a “gamble” largely based on “wishful thinking.” He would prefer to close the district for up to two weeks to save more than $4 million a day in salaries and utilities, a suggestion dismissed by his board colleagues.

The district is continuing to look for savings, and Grier recently instituted a program that freezes many district accounts while requiring school principals and other employees to get permission to spend the money.

Even without a budget crisis, the new scrutiny given to the district's budget and money management has revealed sloppy habits that need to be abandoned for good, Barrera said.

Just being able to identify where the money is and what it's being spent on has been enlightening Barrera said, adding: “When times get better, we can't slip back into that laziness.